i think it's more geared toward people with new toons. I just started a newer toon with my wife the other day and I'm advancing along quite nicely just by doing the regular missions.

For anyone with an existing toon (just finished DC on my VA) it is nothing but a power grind.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I was reading everyone's post. I have my newest toon almost up to the first diplomatic rank and still a lieutenant. Our high level toons are going to do grinding dance. No big deal.

Rewards. They are nice and the jacket is well done. The new officer is the best of the rewards, follow by the new transwarps.

Jacket, yes I agree it should have come with an additional slot. the same goes for the Exchange Officer. I might get the additional costume slots at the C-store, but not until they make them open for either type of, Uniform or Off-duty, costume. The Boff slots, it will be a cold day in Hell before I buy any of them unless they open for ALL toons.

No arguments with the transwaps. A 30 minute cooldown for all of them when you use just one. Give me a break. I could buy a 10 minute global cooldown for the others, and leave the used one on the 30 minute timer, naturally. If you use another one and there is less then 10 minutes left on one, then it would reset up to 10 minutes.

Which brings me to the next topic. Cryptic is full of talented, dedicated people, who really want to give us the best gaming experience possible. But the sometimes they have no common-sense. Please stop to think and put yourselves in our side. How will they, the gamers, react? That is a realistic question that all of them should be truthfully answering.

Enough said. I'm off to grind the other Admiral to Ambassador, after I grab a beer. LOL

...i think Cryptic should rethink the rank. so they got room for improvement. because now that i'm ambassador what's next? ...

I agree Airwane. They should have added more ranks in the middle/end. But look at the regular ranking system, many players "signed" that we wanted something better, so the galaxy would not be filled with Admirals, but They didn't listen. Cryptic seems to enjoy painting themselves into the corner on these things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kristi

...the only big disappointment would be going to do a DI only to find out after you start it..that its not even a DI because you have to fight things, which negates your Dip XP (I ran into this five times during my weekend long grindfest)

I had that happen like 3-5 times, myself. While disappointing, I didn't mind it so much. I figured since Jiro has only "heard" something needs inveestigating, he may have got it wrong, and so =poof= combat. That seems acceptable to the "Diplo storyline" and I was OK with it. Same as how I was ok with finishing one Jiro Sent DI coming back to the Cluster and seeing the blue DI button there again/still. Again, I figured it was just Jiro not knowing everything, that there was *more* to investiagate there than he thought. That was cool. I never noticed that it "only" happened in Arucanis, in fact, I'm sure it happened elsewhere too, but I dunno... Anyway, that later turned out to be a "bug", and has since been "fixed" ... So if that's a bug, then Jiro sending you to Combat should be, and corrected as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kristi

...while the OP says thumbs down...

I agree the First Conacts were a nice break. And they have potential to be cool. But except for being something different, and the possibility for double points (and still, only 20 points for all that extra work/effor?), they're almost as boring as anything else. There's no variety to them. I mean it's the exact same setup each time you do a FC? The people all standing in exactly the same poses, with the same exact step by step process, and some of the times, sharing dialogue between different races?! And the questions the Ambassador asks you and your allowable multiplechoice answers often (at least to me), don't line up. Don't make any sense. Like I said, potential, but it requires lots more polish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kristi

...teh OP is off though Envoy is when you get dip immunity...

Thanks. Fixed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kristi

...however I will say this I admire and appreciate the fact that once you do hit ambassador you are able to choose the bridge officer of your choice. its not one of those "grats you leveled now choose a bridge officer as a reward" and its only 1 bridge officer so its not like you have a choice (really need to fix that btw) you actually get to pick your race/sex/profession...

Yeah, that's a nice feature, for sure! I can understand that in early game, when you're still a Lt or even through Cmdr, that Starfleet just assigns you Bridge Officer X. But by the time an Officer reaches Captain, definitely Admiral, they should have more say in who does or does not get put on their ship.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kristi

... you can also go into B'tran and just hope you get lucky but this is more neck breaking than waiting out Jiro's timer to reset...

To add, if Jiro isn't talking, you can go to any cluster to search for more non-combat missions. It doesn't have to be B'Tran. Just bounce around to any Unknown System, and if there's a fight, beam out, if there isn't go through with it and you'll get DXP just as if Jiro sent you there. They are the exact same missions. The only difference is that when Jiro sends you to a cluster, you're "guaranteed" (with exceptions, as we mention above) to get one Diplomatic Investigation.

If you want to level, the cooldown between exploration missions is 30 minutes from when you end rather than 30 from when you accept. Competition is higher. There are fewer diplomatic missions in the mix as well.

Really, I'd suggest doing these in leveling exploration zones where there are fewer non-diplomatic missions as part of the rotation.

Each exploration cluster seems to add more types of missions.

Towards the Commander rank clusters are the ideal places to do this because all the diplomatic missions are available but there are fewer higher level random missions that don't award diplomacy in the mix.

Also, it's often not worth following Jiro's leads as those will slow you down traveling when you could be visiting unknown systems, dropping non-diplomatic missions and moving on.

Very well put together and constructive feedback. I support all of it.

Especially the grind was very bothersome, it was really really boring. I heard something about archeological missions in-game chat, it'd have been awesome if those were in to break up the grind.

To add to the DS9 vote, I managed to get a vote in, but afterwards it wouldn't show the result of my vote, so now I still have no clue which diplomat won and more importantly, where I can find this winner! I assumed he'd be walking around somewhere on DS9 but I haven't been able to locate where.

Another bug, female orion science officer doesn't have the seduce trait that her engineer and tactical sisters have. I found it pretty lame to find that out and won't buy her until Cryptic fixes it.

What about a mission slider that sets your preference to favor slightly more diplo missions, or slightly more combat missions, or even slightly more scanning missions if you're grinding for RnD components?

Accessible out the box, can be specialized as you advance in the Diplomatic Corps to highlight 'AtP' or 'Scan Five Negative Space Wedgies' or 'Engage Ballchinnian Squadrons' as your character demands.

What about a mission slider that sets your preference to favor slightly more diplo missions, or slightly more combat missions, or even slightly more scanning missions if you're grinding for RnD components?

This is a great idea!! It would be awesome to be able to always pick non combat missions for Diplo XP, doubt it will happen though.

...What about a mission slider that sets your preference to favor slightly more diplo missions, or slightly more combat missions, or even slightly more scanning missions if you're grinding for RnD components?...

I like it. Though myself (and many other players) have also asked for discreet Space/Ground difficulty sliders, but those haven't been added (yet! Crosses-fingers!), so don't hold your breath.

I'm just coming back from a three month break...I was wondering, I've done all the diplomatic storyline missions with my Admiral. I can't get enough DXP to advance. I did not get any retro DXP for all the patrol missions etc... that I did while leveling up before diplomacy was introduced in-game. How can I advance to Attache if I can't get Diplomacy missions from Jiro? Are there other random diplomacy missions located somewhere I can do?

Check out the guide in my sig.

As for everything the OP said, you're totally right. It's a broken system if you were a RA5 when S2 came out (and most of us were). I expect that if we had had it from the start it would integrate more smoothly. As ti is, if you don't level with it it's just a horrid grind for 90% of the time.

As for everything the OP said, you're totally right. It's a broken system if you were a RA5 when S2 came out (and most of us were). I expect that if we had had it from the start it would integrate more smoothly. As ti is, if you don't level with it it's just a horrid grind for 90% of the time.

Yup, yup. Grindy Grind Grinderson.

As for your sig, you sure have imporved the Stonewall Diplo Guide since the last time I looked at it. Looks great!